“That’s something I mentioned in the locker room before the game, that it’d been a while since we won the Classic, and let’s go get it done and finish this,” said Lady Lions head coach Heather Hohertz. “I told them to be relentless no matter what happened on the court, negative or positive, and they responded and did that.”
The Lady Lions (17-6) – who have won nine of their last 10 outings – also chalked up victories over Breckenridge, 53-18, Waco Connally, 58-34, and Fort Worth Nolan Catholic, 52-38, over the weekend en route to the tournament title.
“The girls are focused on a goal and working towards it one game at time,” Hohertz said of the Lady Lions’ surge. “As crazy as it is, the season is closer to the end than the beginning. We have one more game and then we start district and the records go out the window and we have to be on top of our game. I think they’re focused and ready to move forward.”
After converting 46 percent of their shots at the Coliseum Friday night, the Lady Lions turned around and knocked down 38 percent (20 of 53) of their field goals, including six three-pointers in the first half, which helped staked Brownwood to a 32-18 advantage at intermission.
“I told the girls after the game we need to play more of our games at the Coliseum because they shot the ball really well the last two games,” Hohertz said.
For the second straight night, Hannah Deen led Brownwood with 16 points trailed by nine from Trinity Roberts – all on three-pointers – eight from tournament MVP Icess Hall, seven off the bench from Lanie Johnson, five from Nylah Hall, four from Jade Morin and two points apiece from Kate Tindol and Miranda Northcutt.
“Lanie Johnson came in off the bench and played some big minutes for us and hit some big shots, and had five points right off the bat,” Hohertz said. “I told them right now is when we want to play our best basketball moving into district and I was just really proud of our performance.”
Defensively, the Lady Lions allowed no more than 11 points in any quarter as London Chandler paced Lake Country with 13 points followed by Sadie Gough with 10. Erika Hancock finished with eight points and Georgia Moore added five points.
“I thought our defense won the game for us,” Hohertz said. “We played gaps well, we contained No. 13 (Chandler), which was our focal point of the game. It didn’t matter which five were out there, they responded and took care of their jobs.”
After falling behind late in the first period, 10-9, on a three-pointer by Gough, the Lady Lions ended the opening quarter and started the second with a 14-2 run to seize control.
First, Johnson answered the Lake Country trey with the second three-pointer of the game for Brownwood to push the Lady Lions back in front, 12-10l Johnson then added her second bucket of the game with 26 seconds left in the first quarter for a 14-10 edge.
Lake Country scored the first bucket of the second period, but Roberts and Icess Hall responded with consecutive three-pointers to push the Lady Lions advantage out to 20-12 just 1:17 into the quarter.
Deen then scored on a drive and Icess Hall later added a free throw to boost the advantage to 23-12 with just under five minutes left in the first half. Lake Country got no closer than nine points the remainder of the contest as Brownwood led 32-18 at halftime and 44-29 through three frames.
As for the 88-game, 45-team, three-day tournament that took place in four gyms throughout Brownwood, Hohertz said, “I want to thank Roland Soto for helping host the tournament and want to give a big shout out to TexasBank for being our title sponsor. It’s really big for our community for all these teams to come in and we couldn’t do this tournament without our volunteers and sponsors.”
The Lady Lions will host Marble Falls at noon Tuesday in their final outing prior to the District 6-4A opener at Mineral Wells at 5:45 p.m. Friday.
